


The Broken Tower

by replicasex



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drabble, Gen, Science Fiction, The Culture visits Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/replicasex/pseuds/replicasex
Summary: Rick and the gang stumble across a very strange man who claims to be an alien, from something called "The Culture".





	The Broken Tower

**Author's Note:**

> And so it was I entered the broken world  
> To trace the visionary company of love, its voice  
> An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)  
> But not for long to hold each desperate choice. 
> 
> -Hart Crane

There was a man on the highway and a light was dancing around him. A large paper map of the state of Georgia lay open on the hood of a car. All around him walkers fell, one two one. Holes in their head. Rick held up his hand to warn the others behind him. Here was a sight he could not believe. The man was clean and pink. His clothes were laundered. He had a collared shirt on, the first three buttons open to any passing breeze. Rick gripped his pistol.

“Hey!” He shouted. The light flickered for a moment and started again. The man rolled his eyes.

“Finish these up.” The man said calmly. There were maybe two dozen walkers left, in all directions. A sudden flare, a streak that had Rick closing his eyes. The walkers were all dead, heads off and spewing out onto the asphalt. The light was gone.

The man walked away from the car slowly. His hands were at his sides, the palms open. “Hi.” He said.

He didn’t have any weapons. Nothing on his hips. Didn’t even have a backpack as far as Rick could tell. Rick held his gun out to his side. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mal.” He grinned. His teeth were very white. “Pleased to meet you.” He added, after a moment.

“I’m Rick.” Rick waved his free hand backwards. “This is my group.” Everyone was out of their cars now, forming a line. Better coverage. Rick shifted on the balls of his feet. “What was that, the light?” Rick asked. “How did you kill those walkers?”

“Walkers?” The man’s grin faded. “Oh, you mean ... aha, because they walk. Yes. Very clever.” Rick felt the group behind him tense. The man seemed stupid or dangerous. They had to know one way or the other.

“We saw the light flickering around them. It’s why we stopped on the road back there. I’ll ask you again – how did those walkers die?” Rick relaxed his grip on the pistol. _Gotta be quick_ , he thought.

The man looked around, as if seeing the rest of the group for the first time. He looked back at his car. He grinned again.

“Would you believe me if I said it was magic?” He asked. He was still relaxed and calm. It was freaking Rick out. Nobody was calm with a mob holding guns to their face. “Well,” he said kicking at the road. “You won’t believe the truth either, believe me.” He sighed.

Daryl was sidling to Rick’s left. He held his crossbow in front of him, but pointed down. “I dunno,” He said. “World goes to hell, dead come back to life. Not much left to disbelieve at this point.” He spat onto the ground.

“Oh fine, you got me.” Mal said. Everyone tensed. “I’m an alien.”

*

They had found a house in the town over. Not a walker in sight. It didn’t make anyone feel better.

An alien, the man had said. And then he had brought out a little grey object no bigger than a knife handle. The man had pointed at the side of the road and a line of trees were felled almost instantly. The same flickering light. The same painful streak of motion.

So. He was an alien, of sorts.

He looked human. Talked human. Quack quack quack. Rick didn’t know what to make of him. He seemed happy and nice. He had had food and water in his little car and offered it up. They thanked him and said no.

“So ... why were you here?” Carol asked after they had eaten and got a fire stoked. “To begin with, I mean.” Mal had tidied up after dinner and was wiping his hands on an honest to god Dixie napkin.

“We like to meet people.” He spoke quietly now. He didn’t seem very sure of the group, which Rick figured was the first sign of intelligence he’d seen from him all day. “But we don’t go around contacting people who aren’t aware of life outside their system. We’d been watching you guys for a while. Part of my job was to figure out when and how we were going to nudge you in the right direction.”

“Nudge.” Rick said, looking at him. Mal shrugged.

“Yeah. There’s a lot of ways to introduce people to the broader galaxy. I was actually going to point one of the rovers you guys had on Mars to some promising strata.” Mal’s voice got higher and happier the more he talked.

“Strata.” Rick said, deadpan as he could manage. Mal leaned forward.

“Yes! For the fossils, I mean. Not quite vertebrates but complicated enough to leave a nice fossil.” He drank some water and looked over at Rick. “Are you interested in geology?”

*

They stayed in that little town for a week and a day. Not a sound out of place save what god had put there. It was safe and quiet. The man had said they’d be rescued. That his people were coming. Rick rolled his eyes and the rest of them shifted around, a heaviness settling on them. They were hard people now and they wore optimism uncomfortably. Carl hated the man fiercely.

“Of course, they’d want to investigate. A crime like this, well – somebody’s going to pay.” The man said off to the side, casual like.

“Crime, what do you mean crime?” Daryl asked. He was staring out the window of the living room.

“This whole walker business, I mean.” Mal was drinking sun tea he had made the day before. Rick looked at him.

“You mean to tell me that this, this whole thing, world going to hell, everyone dead – that someone did that?” Rick’s jaw was clenched tight. Mal looked surprised.

“Well, yeah. The virus is – well, it’s complicated but it’s pretty obviously designed.” He sipped his tea again. “It’s a conundrum though. Nobody in this area is advanced enough to do it and anybody advanced enough to do it doesn’t have much motive.”

 


End file.
